


please don't dissipate

by tomorrowsrain



Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Outsider, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 21:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12591424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomorrowsrain/pseuds/tomorrowsrain
Summary: He’s eleven years and three months older than her, and growing up she often heard people call him unknowable. He burned too brilliantly, moved too fast—no one could ever hope to keep up with him, even their mother.  But she’s never seen him that way.[Paola Marcado on her older brother - before, during, and after Jamaica.]





	please don't dissipate

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something very new here, I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (I will also hopefully come back and add a part two to this later, but don't quote me on that.) 
> 
> P.S. A note of clarification: while it was Ian that kidnapped Ruben in Jamaica, few people know of his existence, including Ruben's family. So he is always referred to as Jason Cole in this story.
> 
> Title is from the song Agape by Bear's Den.

_“I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.”_

―  **Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince**

 

 

_ _

 

She considers not calling until morning. Or later morning. The clock on her dying phone reads 1:16 AM. She could wander around the city for a few hours, make her way north toward the theatre district or Central Park, and then call at six. He’s always been an early riser.

But the late fall air is sharp and freezing in her lungs and the two-hour bus ride from Philadelphia did nothing to calm the panic snarling through her veins. She can’t wait a few hours, she decides, and dials with numb fingers.

He picks up on the second ring, voice rough and hazy from sleep. “…Paul?”

(It's the nickname he's always used for her, a wink and a nudge at the constant mispronunciation of her name - PAUL-a instead of POW-la. Ma always shakes her head, muttering about her children butchering the beautiful names she gave them, but Paola loves it. Loves that it's something for the two of them and no one else.) 

She chews on her thumbnail—an old nervous habit she’s never been able to stop. “Hey, Ben.”

A rustle of blankets. What sounds like another voice murmuring in the background, but she might be hearing things. Her brother has never been one for bringing people home, even before everything. Floorboards creak. She pictures him going into the living room—footsteps a little heavier to counter the slipperiness of his socks.

“What’s up?” he asks, sounding more alert now. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

She bites harder on her nail. Feels it crack against her teeth. “I, uh, need you to come pick me up?”

A long pause. “Pick you up?”

“Uh-huh.”

Another pause. “From where?”

She blows out a long breath. “The … the, um, Megabus stop on…” a quick glance to the street signs, illuminated by bright lamps. “West 34th Street?”

“ _What?”_ And there’s the freak out she was waiting for. She feels a small pinprick of guilt, but mostly there’s still the panic and the burning desire to see him that put her on the bus in the first place. “You’re in _New York?”_

“Yeah,” she says and hates how her voice wobbles. She managed not to cry the entire bus ride and she isn’t about to start now. “West 34th Street. I, uh, would’ve gotten the train but I don’t know your address.”

“Jesus, Paul.” More creaking and rustling. A door, maybe? What _definitely_ sounds like another voice and Ruben answers back in whispered Spanish that she can’t make out. “I’m coming. Stay put.”

“Okay,” she says, admitting to herself that yes, this might not have been the best idea she’s ever had.

Lots of rustling now. The thud of the phone being set down on something. Another, louder thud, and a muffled curse. Ruben picks up the phone again. “I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” she repeats, listening to the groan of what is probably his front door and the chorus of creaks and thuds as he descends the stairs. “I’ll be here.”

Another door opens and closes and the city rushes across the phone connection: tires on asphalt, voices, the crackle of wind and the start of rain. She can feel drops landing on her own shoulders, sliding fast across the slick surface of her raincoat.

“I’m on my way to the station,” Ruben says. “See you soon, Paul.”

“See you soon,” she says and hangs up, pocketing her phone.

She crosses the street to perch on the low wall that surrounds a huge glass conference center, tucking her backpack underneath her dangling legs to protect it as best she can from the rain, which is coming faster and harder now. It soaks through her jeans and wets the hair escaping from her hood, and she curls up to escape the worst of it, feeling small and sad and more than a little pathetic.

 _Definitely_ not her best idea. Probably in her Worst Top Ten instead - better than dyeing Tio Hernan’s dog hot pink when she was six, but still not as bad as meeting Jason Cole and deciding that he was cool, that he might be _good_ for her brother.

Eventually, forty-five minutes must pass while she sits there in her ball, hiding from the rain and the world, because a voice rises above the typical city noise. “Paul?”

She looks up. And then up again to see his face, framed in silhouette by the street light. He’s predictably not carrying an umbrella and looks as drenched as she feels: hair plastered to his forehead even beneath the hood of his coat, and a frown furrowing his brow.

It’s so good to see him, even if he’s upset. Upset is fine as long as he’s alive and whole and well enough to berate her for her stupidity.

“Hey,” she croaks out, forcing herself to her feet.

To her surprise, he swoops in and wraps his arms around her, cupping the back of her head like he used to do when she was younger. She clings, unable to remember the last time he hugged her.

“C’mon,” he says, pulling back way too soon. “Let’s get out of the rain.”

He reaches for her backpack, slinging it over his shoulder in spite of her protests, and leads her down the street towards the subway station with his hand clasped in hers—the same way he used to keep her from getting lost on rare trips downtown: seven years old and feeling so grown up walking with her brother through the city.

She misses those days with a sudden, vicious ache.

The train is nearly empty, but Ruben still takes a seat at the very end, where he can keep an eye on all the doors. His shoulders stay stiff until after they’ve pulled away from the station. Then, he lets out a long sigh and runs a hand through his wet hair.

“I take it Ma doesn’t know about this?” he asks, expression wry.

She shakes her head.

“Jesus, Paul,” he mutters again. “What happened?”

She thinks back to the letter in their mailbox and the vivid nightmares that refuse to leave her alone, striking with such a vengeance tonight that she woke up hyperventilating.

“Can we talk about it later?” Ruben frowns. “Please, Ben,” she presses and he predictably caves.

Of all people, he understands the best. Even if he’s so often the star of those nightmares.

(She thinks he might even understand that, too, if she ever worked up the courage to tell him.)

“Fine,” he says and drapes an arm across her shoulders. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” she whispers and closes her eyes, resting her head against his chest so she can hear the faint beat of his heart, even above the rattle of the subway car—feel the rhythm of his lungs: in, out, in, out, in, out…

_Alive._

_ _

 

He’s eleven years and three months older than her, and growing up she often heard people call him unknowable. He burned too brilliantly, moved too fast—no one could ever hope to keep up with him, even their mother.  But she’s never seen him that way. She remembers sitting in his lap while he read her story after story, diligently doing different voices for all the characters until his words got rough and sore around the edges. She remembers going on weekend field trips with him to various places around the city: museums, galleries, aquariums—all paid for with his own meager savings. She remembers watching him clatter around in the kitchen after her father left, cooking dinner because their mother was heartbroken and grief-stricken, and reassuring her “we’re gonna be okay, Paul.”

All the nights he helped with her homework, his college textbooks spread out next to her elementary school ones; all the phone calls he answered, no matter the hour, to hear about her frustrations or her joys or her fears; all the days he was strong for them, dropping everything to come home and be an anchor for their mother or a distraction for them. He logged hours sitting cross-legged on the floor while Mercedes tried out new makeup techniques on him and she perched in a nearby chair, chattering about the latest mathematics book she’d read.

He was brilliant and fast and smart enough to move mountains, but he was her brother.

She always knew him. Right up until he got on a plane.

 

_ _

 

His apartment isn’t what she was expecting. He’s on the top floor, in the corner, and they have to climb six narrow flights of creaking stairs to reach it. It’s an old building, he explains. Pre-war. _Everything_ creaks.

It’s a small apartment. A living room with a careworn sofa against one wall and bookshelves taking up the corner of two others. The sight of the books brings a smile to her face—at least some things don’t change. (No television, though. He stopped watching after Jamaica and it seems like he hasn’t started again.) The kitchen is tucked away behind the sofa wall and a small table and two chairs sit between the two windows. The rug covering the floorboards looks like something their abuela used to have in her house: faded and ancient-feeling, perhaps just a little gaudy.

He’s got a few things hanging on the walls (including, she notes with another smile, the vintage patent illustrations and the periodic table she got him as moving gifts), but the most eye-catching thing are the plants. They cover every windowsill, perch atop the bookcases, line a shelf along the wall next to the door, hang from the ceiling in the kitchen, mixing with various pots and pans on a rack. A few larger ones take up space in the corners and next to the sofa.

“Wow,” she says as she takes off her coat and hands it to Ruben to hang up in the small hall closet. “You live in a greenhouse.”

“Yeah,” Ruben says, sounding a little sheepish.

He shouldn’t. All the plants make the space feel warm and cozy and inviting—so different from his expensive, but sterile apartment in Philadelphia. Her and Mercedes used to bug him to add some character to the ultra-modern place every time they came to visit but he’d always shrugged and admitted that he was never there. What was the point?

Seems he’s finally taken their advice. She’ll have to take some pictures later to allow Mercedes to witness the miracle.

“I love it.”

The corner of Ruben’s mouth ticks up. “Right.” He nods toward what she guesses is the bathroom door. “Go ahead and change. I’ll make us some tea and call Ma.”

She winces. That isn’t going to be a fun conversation. “I…”

“It’s okay,” Ruben says and makes a shooing motion. “I’ll handle Ma.”

“Thank you,” she says and takes her backpack into the bathroom.

Fortunately, most of her clothes have stayed dry, and she’s in the process of putting on her pajamas when she notices something draped over the lip of the bathtub: a pair of women’s underwear.

_Dios mio._

There is also an extra toothbrush in the holder by the sink, a bottle of women’s shampoo in the shower, and a necklace next to the toothbrush holder.

Holy shit. Ruben vaguely mentioned having met someone earlier this year, but he never brought them up again, so she hadn’t thought it was serious. Especially because nothing has been serious before. She knows he saw some people at MIT but those never seemed to last more than a few months at the absolute most.

She’s so excited about this new knowledge that she completely forgets to hide in the bathroom until Ruben is done talking to Ma. When she rushes back out into the living room, Ruben, also dressed in pajamas, is setting mugs down on the coffee table—phone cradled in crook of his shoulder.

“Sí, _”_ he says. “Sí, está aquí. _”_ He glances up at her, but his expression is unreadable. She still fights the urge to immediately retreat into the bathroom again. “No, ella vino en el autobus. _”_ He straightens and sighs, sharp. “Sí, está bien. Estoy bien. _Ma_ , ambos estamos bien, lo prometo. No te preocupes. Vuelve a dormir, te llamare mañana, ¿está bien? _”_ He nods in response to whatever Ma says. “Claro. Sí.  Yo también te amo _._ I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He hangs up and sets his cell phone on the table. “Well you nearly gave her a heart attack.”

She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “I left a note on the fridge.”

He shakes his head. “No good enough, Paul. She still wakes up and finds one of her kids missing.”

She winces, reminded suddenly of those two awful weeks in October, not knowing if her brother was alive or dead—her mother calling the police station every morning asking for news.

Ruben sighs, anger draining away before she can apologize again. He’s never stayed mad at any of them for long. At _anyone_ for long, even when he should.

“But she’s glad you’re safe.” He gestures to the sofa, already sinking down on it and pulling on the knitted blanket that’s draped across the back. “So c’mon, warm up.”

She takes a seat next to him and lets him drape the blanket across their laps. It isn’t until she’s nursing her mug of tea that she remembers the bathroom.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

Ruben chokes on his tea, which is really all the answer she needs.

“Does she live with you?”

“N-no,” Ruben gets out, wiping his face.

God, her brother is such a terrible liar. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he says, recovering a little. “She doesn’t live here.”

“So that’s your underwear in the bathroom?”

He chokes again. She bites her lip to keep her grin under control.

“Okay, she stays over sometimes.”

“ _Ben,”_ she pokes him in the side, inwardly thrilled when he doesn’t flinch away from her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugs and now his expression is shuttering. “I … we’re going slow. I didn’t want … it’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll explain later. When it isn’t three in the morning.”

“Okay,” she says, backing off. She’s learned to pick her battles, to keep them few and far between. “She’s … she’s good to you, though, right?”

“Yes,” he says quietly, ducking his head. She still catches the edges of a smile—softer than she thinks she’s ever seen on his face. “She’s very good to me.”

She nods, hoping that tomorrow she’ll be able to convince Ruben to introduce them. She trusts her brother, but she wants to make sure for herself.

No one gets to hurt him again.

“Enough about me,” Ruben declares, setting his empty mug on the coffee table. “Wanna tell me why you got on a bus at eleven p.m.?”

“Later,” she says. “When it isn’t three in the morning.”

“Fair enough,” Ruben says and squeezes her shoulder. “Bedroom’s all yours.”

“I’m fine on the couch,” she protests.

“Nope,” Ruben says. “I called dibs.”

“Ben…” she swallows the rest of her question, not wanting to bring up his scars, not wanting to remember the nights she listened to him sobbing from real and phantom pain. “I call dibs tomorrow night, then.”

“We’ll see.”

He retrieves a pillow and an extra blanket from the bedroom and then gives her another hug. “Sleep well.”

“You too,” she murmurs, knowing that’s always a longshot. The sad quirk of his mouth agrees.

In the bedroom, she looks for more evidence of the mysterious girlfriend but doesn’t find much. Oddly, there’s a flat cap resting on the dresser—a style Ruben’s never worn. But there’s so much she doesn’t know about him, these days. So who knows?

She’s settling into bed when she hears Ruben out in the living room, talking to someone else on the phone. She shouldn’t, she absolutely shouldn’t, but she still strains to make out the words.

She can only catch snatches. “…fine. Yeah … sorry about … okay … yes ... I'll talk to ... night.”

She wonders how much the girlfriend knows, how much Ruben has told her. What _complicated_ means. Has she read the news articles? The ones that unflinchingly repeated every intimate detail of her brother’s trauma. The ones they tried so hard to keep from him, but made him shake when he caught glimpses of them anyway—his wounds distilled down to a salacious story and his mistakes highlighted to overshadow them. Has she seen the things they called him? (Drug dealer, liar, anything but a victim.) Do they make her blood boil?

Or has Ruben managed to keep the worst of it from her?

She’s not sure which one she hopes is true.

 

_ _

 

She cries in dizzying relief when they get the news that Ruben is alive, but it isn’t her brother that gets off the plane from Jamaica. It’s a ghostly imitation that has Ruben’s skin, but sunken, empty eyes and twitching fingers. She still throws her arms around him as soon as she sees him, clinging to him in the middle of the airport. She feels him go stiff in her arms, feels the air seize in his fragile lungs, hears him whisper “ _no”_ like she’s hurting him.

She doesn’t try to touch him again after that.

 

_ _

 

She finds him in the kitchen the next morning, drinking coffee with one hand and watering his plants with the other. The sleeves of his sweater are rolled up to his elbows and she studiously avoids staring at the scars she can see: burns on the underside of his left arm and slash marks scattered across his right.

There are far worse ones, she knows—caught glimpses of them when Ma had to help him rub salve over his back and saw pictures in the courtroom. She still remembers the shock of them, of knowing just how cruel one person could be to another.

It was the first time she believed in monsters.

“Hey,” she says, lingering in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says with a smile. “There’s still coffee.” He nods at the pot on the counter and she pours herself a mug. Black, just like he always takes it.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asks. She didn’t hear any screams, but that doesn’t always mean anything.

He shrugs. “Well enough. You?”

“Fine,” she says.

It’s mostly true. She’s not used to this much city noise drifting up from the street—Philadelphia sleeps far more than New York—but it was comforting to know Ruben was in the next room and if anything happened, she’d be able to tell.

“So I don’t really have any food,” Ruben admits and she frowns worriedly at him.

He stopped eating for a while, during the trial, and it scared them all half to death because he was already so thin and fading. He looks better now, still not completely back to the  weight he was before Jamaica, but definitely way closer.

“Relax,” he says, catching sight of her expression as he moves on to another set of plants. “God, you look just like Ma. I still eat. It’s just that Saturday is usually my shopping day.”

“So let’s go shopping,” she says, taking a seat at the small table. Outside, the trees rattle their dry leaves in the wind and the sky is a pale blue. “Looks like a nice day.”

He arches an eyebrow. “You sure you wanna spend all morning traipsing around with me?”

She nudges him with her foot. “I came here to see you, _idiota._ I don’t mind.”

He flicks the side of her head on his way back to the kitchen and she glares at him to mask the thrilled smile that wants control of her mouth. He hasn’t rolled down his sleeves, either.

She thinks it might just be a good day.

“Get dressed, then,” he calls to her. “Day’s wasting.”

It’s barely seven o’clock. She rolls her eyes, but obligingly goes to change.

When she returns to the living room, he’s shrugging his coat onto his shoulders—dark blue, because grey is on the list of things he avoids. 

Grey, tan, ties, and checkered shirts.

(Ma tried once, to get him to put a tie on for the trial. Bought him a nice new red one and talked about how handsome he’d look.

“He choked me with it,” Ruben whispered, staring at the table with those vacant, vacant eyes. “With my tie. I passed out.”

Ma recoiled. The tie went in the trash.)

“Here,” he says, startling her out of her memories. He’s got a red wool scarf in his hands and she lets him drape it around her neck, fussing over her like he used to when she was a kid. “It’s cold out.”

He’s got a similar scarf loosely wrapped around his own neck. She wonders if they were a gift. “Thanks.”

He smiles at her. “You know, you used to scowl at me whenever I tried to do that.”

“Did not,” she counters immediately, though he’s probably right.

“Did too,” he fires back and tosses one of the grocery bags at her.

“Did not,” she insists as she catches it.

“I’m older and therefore right,” he says.

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Does not.”

“Dios mio _,_ we’re not doing this all day.”

“So, I’m right.”

He rolls his eyes as they step out into the hall, pausing to lock the door behind them. “ _No,_ but I’ll admit defeat.”

“Ha!” She throws her arms up in triumph.

He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

She follows him down those creaking steps and out into the cold autumn morning.

 

_ _

 

They try to get her and Mercedes to stay with Tio Hernan while Ma gets Ruben settled back at home, but she refuses. She doesn’t want Ruben _or_ Ma to go through this alone, and she’s sixteen. Hardly a kid anymore. She can handle it.

(Mercedes, terrified of the stranger wearing their brother’s skin, doesn’t put up a fight at all.)

The first night back, Ruben screams like he’s dying. It echoes through the whole house, ricocheting off all the walls, and she clutches her pillow with shaking fingers, frozen to her mattress by fear and uncertainty. When she hears Ma’s bedroom door fly open, she forces herself up and out into the hall, tiptoeing towards Ruben’s room. The screams cut off halfway, like a switch flipped.

She picks up her pace, slipping in her socks, only to stop cold in Ruben’s doorway. Ma is sitting on the bed, rocking him while he sobs into her neck. The white bandages still covering so much of his skin seem to glow in the city light coming in through the window. Ma’s stroking his hair, humming like she used to when Mercedes had nightmares, but all Paola can hear are those messy, gut-wrenching sobs, wracking through Ruben’s too-thin frame.

She’s never seen her brother cry before.

Her brother is crying, _weeping_ like his heart is breaking, and there’s nothing she can do.

She backs away, retreats to her own room, and curls up under the covers. There, with the blankets pulled up over her head, hiding her, she turns her face into the pillow and sobs, too—helpless, frustrated, grieving tears.

 

_ _

 

She spends most of their time in the grocery store sneaking the unhealthiest and strangest products she can find into the cart when Ruben isn’t looking: ham with cheese already in it, weird energy drinks, Twinkies, a massive bag of candy, peanut butter and jelly woven together in the same jar.

“This is unholy,” Ruben says when he finds the jar. “Why would you subject me to this?”

“They also have cheese from a spray can,” she adds cheerfully, selecting one from the shelf.

Ruben blocks her from putting it in the cart. “Don’t you dare.”

“You don’t want Easy Cheese?” she asks innocently.

Ruben glares. “ _No,_ I just want to buy regular jam in peace. Like a sane person.”

She moves to put the can back on the shelf, but dumps it into the cart as soon as Ruben’s back is turned. It’s not often she plays the part of annoying little sister, but when she does she makes sure to give it her all.

“ _Paul,_ ” Ruben says in weary exasperation when he returns with the jam and sees the cheese in the cart. “I hate you.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Ben,” she informs him.

They head for the frozen food section. A bag of tater-tots, several disgusting-looking microwave meals, and a huge tub of rainbow sherbet later, Ruben looks ready to strangle her, and she decides that she’s completed her sisterly duties for the morning.

“Okay, I’m done,” she promises as Ruben shoves the rainbow sherbet back into the freezer.

“You better be,” he grumbles. “Or I’m leaving you here.”

“You wouldn’t do that to your baby sister, would you?” she says, widening her eyes in an innocent expression she thinks all Marcado children perfected at a young age. Ruben’s still the best at it, though, with his stupid Bambi eyes. But he’s also way less immune than Ma to hers and Mercedes’ attempts.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he relents and points at her face. “So put those away and help me find the broccoli.”

She’s not sure where her silly mood has come from—maybe the chance to spend time with him again, or how much he’s clearly healed since she last saw him—but she gives him an exaggerated salute before marching off in search of the broccoli. She’s rewarded by his laughter trailing after her: rich and full and something she never really thought she’d hear again.

The rest of the grocery store run is uneventful, as is the bus ride to 181st Street. But Ruben hesitates before the turn onto 182nd, adjusting the strap of his grocery bag in a distinctly nervous gesture.

“Is everything okay?” she asks—her own nerves immediately rising in response to his.

“Yeah,” he says distractedly, glancing up the street. “I just … I have to make one more stop.”

Her stomach doesn’t settle. “Okay. Lead the way.”

The way turns out to be several blocks down 181st, to the corner of Pinehurst Avenue. There’s a bodega nestled there, next to a salon, and across the street from what looks like a taxi service of some kind. It looks a little decrepit—the awning faded and stained and the glass of the door smudged—and Ruben heads right for it.

“Did you forget something from the store?” she asks, confused.

Ruben shakes his head and doesn’t elaborate any further.

Okay, then.

Inside is surprisingly clean compared to the front. There’s a little heater running behind the register and a teenage boy perched on the counter with a book in his lap and a baseball cap perched backwards over a mop of curly hair. He looks up when they step inside and a bright grin immediately spreads across his face.

“Hey, Ruben, what’s up?”

“Hey, Sonny,” Ruben replies with surprising familiarity.

There is a long pause. Realizing that Ruben isn’t going to introduce her, she steps forward and holds her hand out. “I’m Paola, Ruben’s sister.”

The kid hops off the counter and shakes her hand. “I’m Sonny, Usnavi’s cousin.”

What?

“Usnavi?” She glances at Ruben but he’s apparently found something fascinating about the candy display.

Something complicated flickers across Sonny’s face. “Oh. Right.” He leans past her to address Ruben. “Want me to get him?”

“Please?” Ruben says without looking at either of them. Her stomach is doing somersaults now.

Getting Usnavi, she quickly learns, translates to Sonny standing at the bottom of the back stairs and yelling up them at the top of his lungs. It seems to work, though, because there are footsteps a few moments later and another voice echoing back down.

“What the hell, Sonny? I have a phone. _Text_ me. If Señora Martinez files another noise complaint, I’m throwing you under the bus.”

A man appears at the bottom of the stairs and a for a moment Paola’s breath catches in her lungs. Same tan skin, same big dark eyes, but no, it isn’t Ruben. This man's, Usnavi’s, features are sharper and a little harder. His hair is shorter and his body is wiry and scrappy and lean. In fact, the closer he comes, the more differences she picks out—slightly crooked lower teeth, sparser goatee, more prominent cheekbones. And an intensity that he radiates, the same kind that seems to rise from the pavement in this city.

Like all the life inside of him is too big for his bones to contain.

She’s not sure what to make of him. Especially when his eyes land on Ruben and widen slightly.

“Oh, hey qu _—_ ” he cuts himself quick and switches gears. “Ruben.”

The name falls wrong out of his mouth, like he isn’t used to saying it, and she doesn’t understand any of this.

Ruben shifts his weight, adjusts that strap again. “Hey, Usnavi.”

His mouth twists, the way it does when he’s trying to make a difficult decision, and then he blows out a long breath and steps forward, reaching into his grocery bag. He pulls out the cap she saw on his dresser last night and says quietly, “you left this last night.”

Oh shit.

_Shit._

She’s vaguely aware of her mouth dropping open a little as she watches Usnavi close the remaining distance and take the cap from Ruben. His fingers brush the back of Ruben’s hand and it’s tender and intimate in a way that makes something in her chest twist sharp and strange.

“Thank you,” he says with a smile that’s just as tender and just as intimate. 

(She struggles not to see Jason Cole at their dinner table, charming smile and a hand pressed between her brother’s shoulder blades.)

Ruben nods and steps back, glancing at her. She snaps her mouth shut and tries to pretend she was looking at the chips instead of openly staring, but Sonny doesn’t look impressed by her acting skills.

“Uh,” Ruben says. “This is my sister, Paola. Paola, this is my…” he swallows, trips over his words. “… Usnavi.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, a little numb.

(Jason Cole, with his fingers brushing the back of Ruben’s neck. Promising to look after him. And her, at the table, thinking that finally here might be someone worthy of her brother.)

Usnavi shakes her hand. His palm is callused and his grip is firm. “You, too. I’ve heard a lot.”

“I can’t say the same.” Her voice comes out too flat, enough for Ruben to wince in her peripheral vision, but Usnavi doesn’t seem fazed.

“I ain't surprised,” he says, a little wry but without any of the condescending accusation she grew accustomed to hearing lace Jason Cole’s words. He looks up at Ruben. “Maybe that'll change.”

“We should get back,” Ruben announces when Usnavi drops her hand. “Just … just wanted to drop that off.”

(Jason Cole, leading Ruben out the door. Ruben’s face twisted in what she would too late recognize as fear. She’d never seen her brother scared before.)

“Okay,” Usnavi says, easy. “See you around.” He tips the hat in what seems like a habitual gesture. She resents that it’s so endearing.

As soon as they're outside and out of earshot of the store, she steps in front of Ruben. “What the hell was that?”

Ruben flinches, a little, enough to make her feel guilty, but then the set of his shoulders turns stubborn. “What do you mean?”

“You’re dating him, aren’t you?”

Another flinch. “Am I really that obvious?”

She gives him a look she thinks accurately conveys her opinion on _that_ stupid question and he deflates slightly.

“So the underwear … I’m assuming not his?”

“No,” Ruben admits, hiding his face behind his hand.

“So … you’re dating two people at once?” She’s not sure how she feels about that. It’s never been her brother’s style. Unless. “You’re _consensually_ dating two people at once?”

Ruben makes an unintelligible noise. When he lifts his head, his cheeks are flushed red, but she thinks it’s normal embarrassment, not the awful shame he wore after Jamaica.

“I’m not having this conversation in the middle of the street,” he says and marches past her towards 182nd.

Not sure of what else to do, she follows him.

 

_ _

 

 

At first she’s overwhelmingly relieved to have her brother back, but she realizes within the first few days that isn’t the case. Ruben spends most of his time either locked in his room or sitting on the sofa staring off into space with blank, vacant eyes. She’ll talk to him and get no response. Sometimes after a few sentences, he’ll shudder and blink at her in surprise, like he’s just realized she’s there.

She thinks, stupidly, of Schrödinger’s Cat: dead and alive, here and not—forever trapped somewhere between.

 _Where do you go?_ she wants to ask, but she’s afraid of the answer. Is it the same place that haunts his nights and rips screams from his mouth?

They found him in a river, all the articles say, but the torture took place in a house. Just a normal, ordinary house. _Small,_ Ruben called it once, during those times when his gaze turns inward and the words come out of his mouth empty and rotting.

Other descriptions have included: _bright walls; big kitchen table; old stove; a bed that creaked._

Her own bed has a loose spring somewhere and gives a low creak every time she turns over. She used to find it comforting, like the bed was sighing along with her, but now she can only think of Ruben. Standing in front of the bathroom sink with heaving shoulders and timorous hands, scrubbing his already damaged skin until there was red on the porcelain and Ma rushed in to stop him.

 

_ _

 

Back at his apartment, Ruben dumps the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and stays braced there for a moment. She watches the taut curve of his spine and wishes she knew what to say. All she has are questions.

“It’s not like you think it is,” he says after a moment. “I’m not … I’m not cheating on anyone.” She waits, afraid to make assumptions. Ruben turns around. Reaches over to play with one of the plants perched by the sink, dancing his fingers across the leaves. “They know about each other. They were dating before me.”

She tries to absorb that. “This is what you meant by complicated, isn’t it?”

Ruben nods. His mouth quirks, a little rueful. “It doesn’t _feel_ complicated, but I know—it looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Kinda,” she admits, leaning against the opposite counter. “You’re okay with it? They’re not, like, _using_ you or anything?”

She’ll kill them both if they are. Somehow.

But Ruben shakes his head. “ _No,_ nothing like that. We’re going slow, at my pace, and it’s good.” His voice drops to a whisper, but she can’t hear any lie in it. “It’s so good, Paul.”

She’s not sure all of her doubts are gone, or the slight twinge of hurt that he didn’t tell her about this sooner, but she trusts him. She trusts the expression on his face right now: open and awed. “Okay.”

“Don’t tell Ma?” he asks, tugging the sleeves of his coat over his hands in another nervous gesture.

“I won’t,” she promises, though she still aches a little inside. Ma’s always wondered why Ruben doesn’t trust her with these things. Why Ruben seems determined to keep vital parts of himself locked away from her.

(“Do I not seem supportive?” she asked after Jason Cole came over for dinner. _“_ Does he think I’d be angry if he brought his boyfriend home?”

“I don’t know, _”_ Paola answered, truthfully. “Just give him time.”

In the end, the choice was taken from him and he spilled it all to her in the aftermath. Curled up in a protective ball on their couch and whispering about liking Jason Cole like it made him awful or wrong. And Ma cupped his cheeks with her weathered hands, and told him that she loved him.

And Ruben’s face crumpled and broke open—tears running between Ma’s fingers like branching tributaries.)

“You can’t keep it from her forever, Ben,” she says now, though she understands. Ma will undoubtedly go into overprotective mode as soon as she hears a man is involved.

“I know,” he admits. “I was planning on telling her soon. On … on maybe bringing them over for Christmas.”

It’s a good idea. No one can be too upset on Christmas, especially Ma, who loves the holiday with an intensity none of her children have ever managed to match. Even Mercedes.

“Do you want to invite them over for dinner?” she suggests now, on a whim. “I can meet them now and be on your side later.”

He laughs, a short burst of sound, and eyes the groceries. The frozen broccoli has created a small pool on the counter top. “Actually, that isn’t a bad idea.”

“I know,” she says smugly and Ruben flicks the side of her head.

“I’ll call them,” he says, reaching into his pocket of his phone. “You can unpack the groceries.”

“Why me?” she asks with exaggerated outrage. “I’m your _guest.”_

“Who showed up unannounced at one in the morning,” Ruben points out.

“Okay, fair point.”

Now it’s Ruben’s turn to look smug. “I know.”

 

_ _

 

The trial is _hell._ Jason Cole sits in pressed suits between his lawyers, wearing the confident expression of the privileged, in spite of the dark circles under his eyes. Ma squeezes her hand until she can feel bones grinding together as a parade of witnesses pick apart her brother’s story and the accusations fly:

He was manufacturing illegal drugs; he broke the law; he abused his position at IMH.

And then even _worse:_ Jason Cole gets up on the stand and talks all about his relationship with Ruben, about how it was completely consensual, about how preposterous it is for Ruben to drag rape charges into this.

She listens with a furnace burning in her heart, wishing she could get up and claw Jason Cole’s smug face right off his skull.

They show pictures of wounds, of a river bank, of bloodstained clothes—the grey tie she got Ruben for Christmas two years before and his favorite checkered shirt. They drag out medical records and hospital reports. It goes on forever while her brother sits in a crumpled sweater next to his lawyer, defeated and small and broken.

She starts dreaming about wounds and river banks and bloodstained clothes and Jason Cole’s shark-like smile, but she picks herself up every day and goes back to the courtroom with Ma. At least she can provide something for Ma to hold onto, even if she can’t do the same for Ruben.

The day Ruben’s supposed to testify, though, he finds her in the kitchen and tells her not to come.

“Why?” she asks - selfishly, _stupidly,_ hurt.

“ _Please,”_ Ruben says, voice cracking, and she relents.

She spends the day at home, unable to bear the chaos of Tio Hernan’s, either. She bakes approximately five dozen cupcakes and cleans every single place she can think of until it’s spotless. Then she makes dinner and another two dozen cookies and finally devolves into watching _Terminator_ until she hears the front door open.

Ruben shoulders right past her and disappears down the hall. Ma collapses into one of the dining room chairs, looking exhausted and frail. She doesn’t know what to do or say or how to help, so she turns back to the movie. A few minutes later, awful retching sounds come from the bathroom.

She turns the volume up, trying to tune them out with the explosions on screen and feeling like a terrible coward.

Eventually, Ma comes to sit next to her on the couch, taking her hand and squeezing hard enough to grind bones together. She presses the volume on the remote again and Arnold Schwarzenegger mows through a group of bad guys on screen.

The retching sounds persist.

 

_ _

 

Usnavi and the girlfriend—Vanessa, Ruben informs her—both accept the dinner invitation, so after a nap and a few hours reading together on the sofa, they start cooking. It’s fun, being in the kitchen with Ruben again. They used to make meals all the time together when Ma was working and Ruben was home from college, experimenting and generally making a mess everywhere that Ma would sigh at when she got home.

It’s not nearly as chaotic now, but they dance around each other in the same rhythm they used to, navigating the small space easily. Throughout their strange little routine, Ruben talks, filling her in on details about Usnavi and Vanessa.

Usnavi owns the bodega they visited today, inherited it from his parents when they died. His cousin, Sonny, is also Usnavi’s ward after _his_ mother died and helps run the store.

(“You’d like him,” Ruben says of Sonny. “He reminds me a lot of you.”)

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“Depends on the day.”

“ _Hey.”_ )

Vanessa works at a fashion magazine and has a studio apartment downtown. She’s been there three years and is steadily climbing the ranks.

(“She’s going to be running it one day,” Ruben says with absolute certainty in his voice.

Somehow, she doesn’t doubt it.)

It feels a little like a floodgate has been opened—like now that he knows he can talk about them, he can’t stop—and she soaks up every detail of these people who have become such an important part of Ruben’s life:

Usnavi wears that flat cap everywhere and can rap better than a lot of professional artists. Vanessa draws clothing sketches in a notebook when she thinks no one’s watching. Usnavi makes the best coffee Ruben has ever tasted. Vanessa is an _incredible_ dancer. Usnavi leaves notes pinned to the fridge in the morning and Vanessa is the grumpiest person ever before coffee. Usnavi knows the stories of everyone in the neighborhood and Vanessa used to shampoo hair at the salon next to the bodega.

He loves them, she can tell that within the first ten minutes. He may not have admitted it to himself yet, but he loves them.

She just desperately hopes they love him back with the same fierceness.

 

_ _

 

 _Not guilty,_ is the jury’s final verdict. They deliberate for less than three hours. Ma lets out a furious, wounded sound as the bailiff reads it out, and she wishes she could feel anything other than an all-encompassing emptiness.

Jason Cole walks out of the courtroom with a relieved smile on his face. Ruben doesn’t move until his lawyer urges him to his feet. His face is as empty as her chest feels.

At home, he shuts himself in his room and refuses to come out, no matter how much Ma pleads.

She sits on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen, and wonders if Ruben is going to slip through their fingers. Or if he always has been.

Schrödinger’s Cat: forever trapped in between, until you open the box. Maybe it isn’t alive and dead at the same time. Maybe it’s just dying.

Slipping away.

She closes her eyes and wonders when she’ll stop being afraid.

 

_ _

 

The buzzer for the intercom goes at seven p.m. sharp. Ruben has changed into a red sweater, but she notices that his sleeves stay rolled up as he goes to answer the front door.

Vanessa and Usnavi have arrived together and she watches as unobtrusively as possible as they both give Ruben a quick kiss on the cheek.

Vanessa is, to put it mildly, _gorgeous._ The kind of woman Paola thinks every girl hopes to be when she grows up. Even in a baggy sweater and jeans, she moves with a magnetic confidence, but there is also a roughness to her. She doesn’t strike Paola as gentle, except for when she touches Ruben, fingers carding briefly through his hair.

“Hey, querido _,”_ Usnavi says, squeezing Ruben’s hand with that tender smile of his.

That word comes easy, natural.

Paola relaxes a fraction.

Vanessa spots her over Ruben’s shoulder and approaches. _Now,_ she seems almost nervous, tucking a loose strand of long hair behind her ear, and Paola tries to hide her surprise.

“You must be Paola,” she says, holding out a hand. “I’m Vanessa.”

“Nice to meet you,” Paola replies and shakes it.

Before the silence can slip into awkward territory, Usnavi comes over and levels her with a bright grin. It’s a little like looking directly at the sun. “Hey, long time no see.”

“Yeah,” she says, not bothering to fight her own smile.

“Heard any more about me?” Usnavi asks with a teasing glance at Ruben.

Ruben huffs and rolls his eyes, but he’s blushing. Okay, she can get on board with this.

“Lots,” she says and Usnavi’s grin sharpens into a pleased smirk. “Mostly good things.”

“ _Mostly?”_ Usnavi says and glances at Ruben again. “You tellin’ lies about me, querido? _”_  
  
“Hardly,” Ruben says, deadpan.

“Nah,” Vanessa counters. “He probably lied just to find _mostly_ good things.”

“Traitor,” Usnavi says, but his eyes are dancing.

Paola lets her smile stretch her cheeks, charmed.

“We should eat,” Ruben announces before Vanessa can fire off another good-natured barb, and they all crowd into the tiny kitchen to pile stir fry onto their plates, then crowd around the small kitchen table to eat.

Paola watches, learning their rhythm.

Usnavi brushes the back of Ruben’s neck as he sits down and Ruben leans into the touch. Vanessa shifts to give him enough room to eat with his left hand, even though it leaves her perched on the edge of her chair, and Ruben moves his leg to help her balance.

It’s easy, natural, and she realizes that he must have been dating them both since the spring. That _this_ is why he was so cagey with the details. Which she supposes she can understand—three people in a relationship isn’t something she would have considered much before today, but they just … fit.

They feel _complete._

She relaxes even more and answers their questions about school and home and her family, but dodges any about college or the future. Eventually, they clear their plates and Usnavi insists on washing up.

“You cooked,” he says in response to Ruben’s protests and waves him away. “So, shoo. Vanessa can help dry.”

“Thanks for drafting me,” Vanessa says like she doesn’t already have a dish towel in her hand.

Usnavi hands her a plate. “You’re welcome.”

Paola urges Ruben out of the kitchen so he doesn’t hover and they take opposite ends of the sofa.

“What do you think?” Ruben murmurs, barely audible above the sound of Usnavi and Vanessa’s chatter.

(Vanessa seems to be insulting Usnavi’s washing technique and Usnavi is responding by flicking soap water at her.)

“I like them a lot,” she admits and Ruben brightens, excited disbelief stealing over his features.

“Yeah?”

She bites her lip against another smile. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Ruben whispers. “I’m glad.”

Vanessa and Usnavi return before she can say anything else. Both have a copious number of wet spots on their shirts and several strands of Vanessa’s hair are damp.

“Dishes are clean, no thanks to this idiota _.”_

“You started it,” Usnavi says as he perches on the arm of the couch behind Ruben. Vanessa pulls up one of the kitchen chairs and rests her socked feet on the coffee table.

“Never mind that,” she says, waving a dismissive hand. “We have more important matters to talk about." She shifts and fixes Paola with an intense stare. "Paola, what was Ruben like as a kid?”

Ruben stiffens. “No.”

“Was he a total science nerd already?” Usnavi asks, ignoring Ruben. “Did he build experiments in his bedroom?”

Paola hesitates, searching Ruben’s face for confirmation that she can commence with her arsenal of embarrassing stories. The corner of his mouth ticks up—a silent _I’m okay._

Well then.

“He set his mattress on fire once.”

Vanessa leans forward, looking delighted. “No.”

“Yep, and then a year later he melted part of his headboard with acid.”

 _“_ No me diga _,”_ Usnavi says, grinning down at Ruben.

Ruben sighs. “It was only a _very small_ part of the headboard.”

They spend the rest of the evening like that: trading stories. She shows Usnavi and Vanessa pictures of Ruben post one of Mercedes’ experimental makeup sessions and Ruben fires back with several of her in one of her more unfortunate haircut phases. Usnavi and Vanessa compete for who can come up with the most embarrassing story about the other person, starting with their first apparently disastrous date and ending with the time that Vanessa accidentally spilled red wine all over the bride’s dress at a wedding.

Paola laughs so hard her sides hurt and by the time Vanessa and Usnavi get ready to leave, her doubts are forgotten.

Especially when they say good-bye. They each hug him in turn, folding him into their arms like he’s precious and to be handled with care, but not breakable. They know, she thinks - at least the broad shape of it - and more importantly: they love him.

Vanessa kisses his temple and Usnavi’s fingers twists gently in the back of his sweater.

It radiates.

 

_ _

 

“I’m leaving,” Ruben announces at breakfast, two months after the trial. “I can’t stay here.”

They were expecting a decision like this, the city has filled with personal ghosts, but Paola still feels disappointment prick sharp beneath her skin.

She’s going to lose him after all.

“Where will you go?” Mercedes asks.

Ruben shrugs. “Anywhere that isn’t here.”

He’s barely touched his food, but it’s a miracle he’s even sitting at the table with them. Most days, he refuses to get out of bed.

“Okay,” Ma says and reaches out to lay a hand on his arm. She catches herself halfway, but not before Ruben flinches. “We can help you find somewhere.”

Ruben nods and pushes his eggs from the right side of his plate to the left. Back again.

She hopes that whatever faraway place he settles in can help him heal and she wishes, with a selfishness she loathes, that they were enough.

 

_ _

 

They end up back on the couch in the wake of Usnavi and Vanessa’s departure, blanket over their laps and mugs of tea in their hands just like the night before.

“So,” Ruben says. “Now that you know my secret, wanna tell me why you got on that bus?”

Not particularly, but a promise is a promise.

“I didn’t get into Columbia,” she admits, picking at a loose thread of the blanket with her free hand. “My scores weren’t high enough and my GPA tanked sophomore year.”

The Year of Jamaica, she’s come to think of it as, while the first half of junior year was entirely consumed by The Trial.

"Oh, Paul,” Ruben murmurs and reaches over to cover her hand with his. “I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs, hating the tears that are bubbling to the surface again. “It’s okay. It’s just a college.”

“Still,” Ruben insists, squeezing her hand. “I’m sorry.”

She nods, knowing that he can only provide so much sympathy. No school _ever_ turned him down.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he presses after a pregnant pause.

Damn him for being so perceptive.

“I was having nightmares,” she says, trying to keep her voice even.

“About me,” he concludes and she nods.

It’s almost always the same dream: a replay of the day she came home early from school to find him sitting at the dining room table in front of a row of cleaning supplies. Only in the dream, he’s already dead—slumped over, limbs limp and eyes wide and empty. Beneath his clothes, all his scars have regressed to wounds and reopened, staining everything red.

If she closes her eyes, she can still hear the blood dripping to the floor.

She shudders.

“I’m sorry,” Ruben says softly.

“ _Don’t,”_ she snaps. “It's  _not_ your fault.”

She blames Jason _fucking_ Cole and no one else.

Ruben’s mug clinks against the coffee table and he shifts closer, wrapping an arm around her and resting his chin on top of her head. “I’m still sorry.”

“I don’t want to go home,” she whispers.

It feels so lonely there without him. Mercedes spends her weekends and evenings with friends, countering the pain by throwing herself into her social circle. Meanwhile, Ma has locked her pain away somewhere private, content to grieve and struggle where the rest of the family can’t see.

And so, she flounders: no friends to run to and unable to ignore the void where Ruben used to be.

“Paul, you have to go back to school,” Ruben says.

“Just a few days?” she asks. “Please?”

He relents easily and kisses the top of her head. “Fine, a few days. And it’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

He’s told her that many times over the course of her life and she’s always believed him. She’s a little surprised to find that now is no different.

“Thank you,” she says and closes her eyes, listening to the beat of Ruben’s heart. Feeling the rhythm of his lungs: in, out, in, out, in, out…

_Alive._

(He’s right. They’ll be okay.)

 

 

_ _

 

_“What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well...”_

―  **Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my day, my week, my year, my LIFE. Or come find me on tumblr at [wobblyspelling](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com). I am always happy to yell about the fictional characters that have taken over my heart, brain, and soul.


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